Oral history given to Gwillim Law

[This is a transcript of an oral history of Bessie G. Law (B), taken by Gwillim Law (G).]

G: You were born on January 6, 1886, right?
B: Yes.
G: And today is October 20, 1982. What were your earliest recollections?
B: I don't remember much except running home from school, and I had a little red cape that I wore, and my brother saw me running down the hill, and he ran after me. I was coming home at recess. I didn't like school. And he grabbed me and took me back to school again.
G: Your father was a jeweler. What do you remember about his life and his work?
B: Well, only that we were poor as poverty most of the year, but at Christmas time, if he had a good year, a good sale at Christmas, then we had plenty of money for a little while. But he was known as being very honest. All through the town, that was his greatest asset. There was one man that went to Texas from Bristol, and he always sent back at Christmas time, and bought as much jewelry as he wanted from my father, because he knew he was an honest man.
G: Mm hm. And you had four brothers?
B: Yes, and one died before I was born, even. He was thirteen months old or something.
G: Uh huh, and they were all older than you?
B: Yuh.
G: And one of them went out to Saint Louis to earn his living?
B: Yuh, and ended up--he only had a common school education, and he was one of the vice presidents of the telephone company. He worked his way up. He went to Chicago to live, finally. He retired at about 45 at a real big salary.
G: Which one was that?
B: Harold. Harold Evans.
G: Let's see. Then you went off to the Kent Hill School in Maine?
B: Yes.
G: And what school had you gone to before that?
B: I went to the High School for two years, and then I went to Kent's Hill in Kent's Hill, Maine, for a year. I took just the courses that I wanted, and I took English, French, and German.
G: And that was a very happy time for you, wasn't it?
B: Oh, I had a beautiful time up there.
G: What was specially good about it?
B: Oh, we had dances every Friday night or Saturday night. But we couldn't dance regular dances, we danced Virginia reels and dances like that.
G: Square dances?
B: Yes, ayuh.
G: How did you spend your evenings? Did you do a lot of studying?
B: Just studying, that's all. And they had a partition between the boys' dormitory and the girls' dormitory, it was in the same building; and we used to sneak notes under the door from one to the other.
G: Was it then that you visited Standish most often?
B: Well, my great-aunt Matil--um, Louisa died, and left her house to my mother and one of her cousins, and I was thirteen at that time. My mother went up to Maine to the funeral, and decided to stay up there a while, and sent for me. And my father let me go all by myself. I went to Boston on the train, then I took a boat from Boston to Portland, and then I took a train out to Sebago Lake, and then a stagecoach up to Standish. And I went all by myself!
G: Hm! Did you have to do the same kind of thing going to Kent Hill?
B: Yes, when I went to Kent's Hill, I'd never been there before, I didn't know a soul up there, and I just wanted to go up there. And I met one of the trustees at Grace Gwillim's father's house. I was--Grace and I were very friendly when we were real young. And her mother and father--her mother and my mother were very friendly. So I met this trustee at her home one time, and it intrigued me, and I thought I'd like to go up there to school. So I took a train at Portland and went up to Readfield, and then I took a stagecoach up to Kent's Hill, and the very first night I got there, a girl came to me, and she said, "I've got a boy friend, and he's got a boy friend, and we're going over to my house." She lived there, but she took her meals over at Kent's Hill. So she said, "Don't you want to come over and get acquainted?" And I did! So I got in the very minute I got there, and had a beautiful time.
G: Mm hm, yup. Let's see. It was a dormitory, and then a classroom building? Were there a lot of buildings at Kent's Hill?
B: Yeah, there were about three. Good big buildings.
G: You used to talk about how you had to go out to the outhouse on cold winter evenings. Was that when you were living in Bristol?
B: Yes, until I was twelve years old or so.
G: And then you had indoor plumbing?
B: Then we went--yes, we moved into a house that had indoor plumbing.
G: Uh huh.
B: We had a nice, good eight-room house that we lived in from the time I was born until I was twelve or thirteen years old.
G: And was the house you moved into better?
B: No. Well, not exactly. It was an apartment. We moved--my father sold the house, and he was--he owed on the taxes, and he had to have the man pay him the money for the house before he could move, because he had to pay the taxes. We weren't affluent at all, but we lived in a nice society.
G: Did you move because your older brothers were starting to move out?
B: Yeah, I guess so.
G: What kind of society events did you have in Bristol? What kind of things did you do to entertain yourselves?
B: Nothing in particular. Nothing--I never went--except church. I went to church and Christian Endeavor, and... that's all.
G: Let's see. Then in 1903 you went to Saint Louis to see the World's Fair?
B: No, we didn't go to see the World's Fair. We went to visit--we went to Saint Louis to visit my mother's brother, Frank Moore, that was an engineer out there. Then we went to Chicago. We were about a month gone out there.
G: But was the World's Fair on then when you went?
B: No, it had been. We went to the World's Fair to see what it had been, but it was over.
G: Uh huh. So you went in 1904, or in the...
B: No, I think it was 1909 that we went out there.
G: And you traveled with your family then.
B: I traveled with my mother. That's all.
G: By train?
B: Yup.
G: You used to tell me about the first car that there was in your family, and whose was that?
B: That was Stan's, down in Plainville. He had a good job at Trumbull Electric, and they used to come up and take us to ride. And our first car was a Ford. We must have gotten that in about 1913. A little coupe.
G: You used to tell me about the boy that you liked, and he turned out to be no good.
B: Oh, that one at Kent's Hill, you mean?
G: I guess so.
B: No, he was good all right, but he was fluctuating between two girls, and I told him to take the other one and leave me alone.
G: Uh huh. Then, how did you meet Gramp?
B: He was the manager of the American Silver office. And I went to work there. And it took him five years to decide to get married. He was thirty and I was twenty-six.
G: Let's see. So you had had secretarial training by then?
B: Yeah. Harold came home with the scarlet fever, and I had to move out, and I moved in with Den, my brother Den. And so, I thought, "I'm going to take shorthand lessons," and I went to a man who gave lessons on the side, and so I didn't go to a school, really, until later on when I was in Portland one year. I went to Shaw's Business College for about three months, in Portland. Then I came home, and I was a private secretary for a man named Page at the General Motors; and I got seven dollars a week. That shows the difference, the pay.
G: Did you have any other schooling after Kent's Hill?
B: Did I have any what?
G: Any other schooling after Kent's Hill?
B: No.
G: So you were working for a man named Page at General Motors, you say, and then you switched over to International Silver?
B: No, I worked at International Silver as just a clerk, but I was stenographer when I worked at General Motors.
G: Well, which came first?
B: The American Silver.
G: Oh, American. And so you met Gramp there, and you just kept in touch with him while you were...
B: Yeah, I went around with him. He used to take me to plays in New Britain and Hartford and--but his mother had, her husband died when she had about six children and she used to take in washings, and he used to have to go with the washings, and bring them back home again. She was a wonderful woman, a wonderful mother, but she expected her children to take care of her as they got older, just like the old country, and she was from Ireland. Let's see, her name was Stier, so she expected, and she didn't want her children to get married. She wanted them to stay with her and support her. So she wasn't in favor of your father's getting--your grandfather's getting married at all. And your grandfather thought more of my mother than he did of his own mother, because he thought she was mean not to want him to get married. When he found a nice girl.
G: So when did Gramp propose to you?
B: Well, he proposed to me once and then he--then I told him after a while I guess I didn't want to marry him. He gave me some gold beads. That was the first step in being engaged when I was young. So I gave him back the gold beads. And then I began to miss him, and regret it, so I called him up one time and I said "Come up and get your gold beads." So he came up, and that started it going again. (Chuckles.)
G: When you were born the telephone had been invented, but I guess not very many people had it yet.
B: No, there weren't more than four or five. There was a telephone directory, I think, that you found. Well, maybe there were ...
G: There were about 26 in New Haven in 1878.
B: Yeah.
G: So you didn't have one in your home until later on.
B: No, not until long later on. I took piano lessons when I was about ten years old.
G. Mm hm. Um, let's see. Okay, then when you and Gramp got married, was he still working at the Silver?
B: Yuh.
G: When did he--
B: No, he wasn't. He worked down to Peck, Stow, and Wilcox. And then my mother made such a fuss living away from me--she couldn't live without me, she said--so he found a job up at C. J. Root in Bristol, and we moved back, and moved in with my mother and father.
G: So when did he start working at Bristol Brass?
B: Well, that was part of the American Silver. He worked there twice, you see. He got through there, and went down to Southington. Then he came back and worked at Chidsey's--C. J. Root a while, and then he went to the Bristol Brass again, and he was one of the chief stenographers there, and cost accountant. That's really what he did.
G: Uh huh. And how long did it take him to work up to vice-president?
B: Thirty years, I guess. Or twenty. He wasn't vice-president. He was secretary.
G: Oh. Was he the only secretary that they had? I mean, the only corporate secretary?
B: Yeah.
G: You got married in 1912?
B: Yeah.
G: And Daddy was born in 1921. How did you spend the war years? Were you affected by the war?
B: Not very much, no. Not a bit. Nor by the Depression. We lived along just the same, and he had the same salary, and in fact maybe a little more. We were never affected by that at all, that Depression.
G: How about the great flu epidemic of 1918?
B: No, that didn't bother us either. Nobody we knew had the flu.
G: You were lucky not to be in these great currents of history.
B: Yeah.
G: Now, what was Daddy's childhood like?
B: Well, I don't know. We were so delighted with him, to have one, that we just thought he was just wonderful, and we put all our time on him.
G: And you told me that Gramp helped establish the Greene-Hills School so that he wouldn't have to cross the tracks? Did Daddy get to go to the Greene-Hills School?
B: Yes. Yes, he did. I think he went one year at the elem--at the Sarah Reynolds School, and then he went to--for his first--when he was seven years old he went to that school.
G: You also said that Gramp was one of the men who got together to create the Forestville Boys' Club.
B: Yeah, he was very much interested in that, and helped out with that in every way.
G: Did he help raise funds?
B: Well, I guess so. I think so. He did--he was one of the leaders for it.
G: What other civic activities was Gramp involved in?
B: Well, he was councilman for two years in Bristol, by election. And he was secretary of the Knights of Pythias, until he married, and then he thought he didn't want to go any more, so he didn't go very much. But for years, and he was secretary in the Masons, and he went up to the--I think he was a 32nd degree Mason.
G: H'm. Don't know what that means, but--
B: Well, that's a great honor. Really.
G: You used to teach Sunday school. When was that?
B: Well, I taught--they gave me a certificate that I'd taught 50 years, not too long ago. I taught when I was about 13 or 14. And I just enjoyed it, and there was an older teacher that was in the library right next to my class. I had a class of boys. And she said I was one of the best teachers there.
G: And that was all at Asbury Methodist Church?
B: No, that was up in Bristol. Prospect Methodist Church.
G: Uh, huh. But you've been a member of Asbury for more than 50 years, haven't you?
B: Yuh.
G: That was--when did you move out to 116 Kenney Street? That was before Daddy was born?
B: Yes. We lived in three houses on Kenney Street. One we rented; then we bought a two-family house and the Greens lived in the house with us, and that Richman Green was born a month after your father was, and we lived in that house with them until the kids were about four years old, and then we built a house, and they built a house over on Washington Street, so we separated, but we've always been friends.
G: Let's see what else I wanted to talk about. Well, how about when you went to Chester with Daddy? We've talked about that this vacation, anyway, but why don't you...
B: When I went to what?
G: Chester, Massachusetts.
B: Oh, yes, those kids loved that. Lilah used to go up with her children, and we'd go with your father, and we'd stay there for a month. It was out in the country on a farm, and there was a river that went down through, and your father learned to swim there on that river. There would be pools, you know, where you could go in. And that was a beautiful outing. The woman that ran it just had four or five boarders in the summer. We went up there every year for years.
G: Uh huh. Was Gramp able to stay the whole time?
B: No, no, he'd only come for two weeks.
G: That was his vacation?
B: Yup. And he could come up on Saturdays and Sundays, too. He'd come up, and...
G: Your mother lived to be a hundred, is that right?
B: Yeah.
G: And she stayed with you all that time?
B: She stayed with us ... She lived with us 25 years.
G: Were those the last 25 years of her life?
B: Yuh.
G: So Daddy must have grown up knowing her.
B: Yes, yes. She was like a mother to him. But she never interfered. She was like a--kind of like a baby. I took care of her the same as I did your father. She expected it. She didn't get involved in anything, she just went along with Reed. After she died, and Reed was away at school, your grandfather said once when we were out riding, "I miss your mother and Reed, don't you?" So he thought a lot of her. She was a very even disposition ... very easy to get along with.
G: But she must have been an awful lot older than Daddy, I mean ...
B: Yes, she--
G: How old was she when Daddy was born?
B: Well, he was born in 1921, and she was born in 1842.
G: So that's 79 years.
B: Yes. Some difference!
G: So he was 21 when she died?
B: I guess, yes.
G: 1942?
B: Your mother met her and knew her. She was in a convalescent home. We paid $25 a week for her at that time. And she was in one five years, and they never went up on the rates. $25 a week. That was it.
G: You said that when you were first married, Gramp was making $25 a week, and you saved $5 and ...
B: Every week I went down with $5. He gave his mother two dollars and a half to help her rent, and we gave the church I think it was 50 cents a week, which was a lot for us to give, even. And we each had a dollar a week to spend. If we'd go to the movies, we could go to the movies for ten cents, and get an ice cream soda for ten cents, so it would cost us each 20 cents for that. Then I'd come up to Bristol to see my mother once a week, and that was 20 cents. It was ten cents each ride. Ten cents to Plainville, and from Plainville to Bristol, ten cents.
G: And how did you budget the rest of your money? How much was for food and how much was for rent?
B: We had one dollar a day for our food, seven dollars a day [week], and we paid twelve dollars for our rent. A month. Imagine living like that!
G: And how long did that last? When did Gramp start getting raises?
B: Oh, from the time he left the Peck, Stow, and Wilcox, he got a raise when he came to Bristol, he got more, and he kept getting little raises all the time, and every time we'd put that extra money in the bank.
G: And so Gramp invested all that eventually?
B: Yes. He was very good on investments.
G: When did you start having enough money to invest in stocks and things like that?
B: Oh, pretty soon. When he'd get a hundred dollars, or a thousand dollars up, then he'd invest it.
G: Then, Daddy went to Wilbraham Academy for his prep school...
B: He didn't do well in high school, because there were such large classes. And so, when he went up to Wilbraham, he was the highest student in the class, both years when he was up there.
G: That was his junior and senior years?
B: Yes.
G: Did that pose a financial hardship on you, to send him to--
B: No, no. We had plenty of money by that time.
G: I know he made a friendship with Robert Taylor there that lasted a long time. Did you know his friends at Wilbraham? Did you get to meet Robert Taylor?
B: We went--I'll say we did! Your father wouldn't let one Saturday go by but that we went up to see him. I don't know whether he liked having us come; but there was another couple from Middletown-- Meriden--that went up there the same as we did, to see their son. And your father got a roommate that was the lowest in his class, and your father was the highest, and they never met, hardly. His roommate was sick for two weeks and your father didn't even know it. They never hardly met.
G: You told me once that you and Gramp went up to tour the Mohawk Trail when it was first opened.
B: Yes.
G: Want to tell me about that?
B: Well, we started and thought we'd camp out. We took a tarpaulin, or something. And we got up as far as--well, not very far. Up past Springfield, a little bit. We got out and started to camp out, and we put the tarpaulin up and got in there, and the mosquitoes began to bother us. And I said, "This is not for me!" And he said, "Me, either!" So we parked it all in the car again, and we went to a hotel and stayed. And then it took us two days to go up around the Mohawk Trail. If you know where it is, up around Pittsfield, or somewhere--and North Adams--
G: Yeah, it goes, I think, from Greenfield to North Adams and Williamstown.
B: Yeah.
G: And so ... these days you could drive all the way there and back in about four hours.
B: I know it! Seems strange that it would ...
G: Was it because the trail was worse then?
B: Yeah, it was longer, and poorer roads.
G: Just a dirt road?
B: I don't remember, but I imagine so. A lot of them were.
G: Was that before Daddy was born?
B: Yes. Oh, that was when we were first married. 1912.
G: Uh huh. What difference did radio make in your life? That was about 1925.
B: Not much. We had one. But it was--they were hard to use at that time. Half the time they wouldn't work.
G: Yes. Did you have one of the old crystal sets?
B: Yes. Yup.
G: Did you know how to work it?
B: No! (Laugh.)
G: So you didn't use it much until they came out with better sets later, I suppose?
B: No. We couldn't get too much on it.
G: Then, when Daddy went off to Wesleyan, did very much change then?
B: No, I wouldn't say so.
G: How did he meet Mother?
B: Well, he knew her cousin. What was his name? He was out in ... I've forgotten, but it was a cousin of hers and he introduced them. And it was just at the time he was having to go into the army--air force, he went to. And he became a navigator. He wanted to be a pilot, and they tried him out, but they said he was not a good pilot, but he was a good navigator. It took mathematics.
G: So then when he married Mother, where did they live at first?
B: Well, they came to our house and lived. 'Cause he expected to have to go, and he was called about two weeks after they were married.
G: That was January, 1943.
B: Yeah.
G: And then she moved out and went--
B: Well, she went over to Middletown and stayed with her mother for a while, and then she got an apartment.
G: How did you feel about his military service?
B: Oh! We were worried to death! It was a terribly hard time for us then. 'Cause he was over, I think he flew 18 missions.
G: So did he go over late, in 1944?
B: Yes, and he came home, I think, in 1945. He wasn't there a whole year, I think. I'm not sure, but... It was terrible. Oh, how worried we were.
G: Was D-Day before he went over?
B: No, it was long after that. That's why he had to be over there almost--I think he was there nine months or something.
G: He didn't participate in D-Day, did he? Or do you know?
B: No, I don't remember anything about it.
G: Did he write home often?
B: Yes. Yeah, he was very good about writing. He said he would go up in the plane and with ten other planes that would go up and go over Germany and drop bombs, and he said sometimes only seven would come back, or less than that, even. And he said the boys that were there in the camp, if some of the fellows didn't come back, they'd go over to their place and take all their clothes and everything they wanted, that those fellows had. That bothered your father terribly.
G: Well, then I was born in 1945, and what do you remember about when you first saw me and my first couple of years of life?
B: Well, I remember your mother--your grandmother Inglis called me and said, "Well, Mrs. Law, you've had a nice birthday present today!" And your father didn't see you until you were about six months old. I think it was in June that he came back, and I remember he came back into Bradley Field. And your father [grandfather] and I could not wait to see him, so we went up there, and your mother went up with you. You were about six months old. And we just waited to say hello to him, and then we left him to be with you and your mother. But we had to see him!
G: Had you seen me before then?
B: Oh, yes! We saw you every week. We used to go over there and, oh, we thought you were the most beautiful baby we ever saw.
G: And you visited me every week while we were living in Hamden?
B: Yes, I think we did. We used to go down and tell your mother to go out and go to the movies or something and we'd stay with you.
G: At first when Daddy got back he went to Yale, and he was living down on Trumbull street?
B: Ayuh.
G: How long did that last, and how long was I in Hamden?
B: Well, I should think until you were about a year old or so. We found an apartment for you down there, through a friend of your grandfather's, and that's how you--it was very hard to get apartments down there at that time, on account of the war, the boys coming back, so I remember going down there and bringing you up to our house, or they'd bring you up on a weekend. Your mother wouldn't be feeling good, and they'd bring you up. We'd have plans for the evening or something, but that didn't matter. We'd rather have you than do anything! Your grandfather just worshiped you. We bought the house for them in Hamden, because we thought your father might want to stay there, or something, so we bought them a house. They sold it and bought the house in Cortland with that money.
G: I remember going to the Gesell Institute when I was about one and a half, or at least I remember being told that. I remember a little bit about going. What do you know about that?
B: About what? Where'd you go?
G: The Gesell Institute, at Yale.
B: Oh. Yes, you were about two or two and a half then. And they found you were a genius down there.
G: When did I come up to live with you and Gramp?
B: Well, it was after your mother and father moved--no, it was before they moved to Cortland. And I know you were here for your first grade, so you must have been here from the time you were six to eight, because you went to first grade over here, and they all said you were a genius. They had the Board of Education, the head of the Board of Education come down and talk with you, and he asked you to spell disestablishmentation.
G: Antidisestablishmentarianism.
B: And you spelled it--wrote it on the board for him. You were only seven, you were about seven then.
G: I remember when he wrote that word on the board and asked me to sound it out syllable by syllable, but I don't remember writing it out myself.
B: Well, you did. But, when you were three years old, Sarah and Rose came over, and we told them that you could spell and read. And they said, "Oh, he only reads what you've read to him." So we got the newspaper and you read about explosions going on, and all kinds of things, and you read it to them. They said, "Why, he can't read that!" And you did, you could read the newspaper. You were three years old, I know, because Dorothy Anderson, next door to us, was married at that time, and we had an invitation. And you read that, and that was in writing. It wasn't in printing.
G: It seems to me I have so many memories of living here in Bristol that it must have been longer, but I don't know. I remember going down to the little grocery store and getting a popsicle, and then down to the newsstand and buying a comic book, I guess it was every day, wasn't it?
B: I guess so!
G: And so I had a huge pile of comic books.
B: And I made you give some of them to a boy across the street. And that broke your heart. I didn't realize you really loved those so much.
G: Uh huh. I used to sit under the dining room table and put them in stacks according to the title.
B: And you used to take a rope and tie it around the dining room, all around. And we couldn't get in there half the time. We'd leave it that way and we'd eat in the kitchen.
G: And I would pretend that I was king of the house, and I used that alarm clock as a bell call for a bellhop in a pretend hotel, and I tried to dig a hole out in the back yard using the water faucet to make it muddy so that I could dig in it, I wanted to make an underground room there to play in, and I'd go up in the rafters of the garage and I'd jump off the garage roof--did I get out through the little doorway into the shed behind it and out to the roof there?
B: Yeah. That was lower, you see.
G: And I taped together comic strips from the newspaper and made long rolls of them, and I wrote up a newspaper and sold it around to the neighborhood, and made everyone give it back to me so I could go on selling it, and--didn't I do a lot of that before I started going to school?
B: Yeah. Well, your grandfather was typing your father's thesis for him. He hadn't been able to get it done. And he was on our back porch, typing. He had the typewriter out there. And every time he'd get away from that typewriter, you'd get out there and type, and you got so you could type. Now, how old were you then?
G: Beats me.
B: When he graduated from Yale. That was on his graduation, because we were typing his thesis.
G: Uh huh. Well, I don't know what year...
B: I think you were--I don't think you were--well, Steven was just born when he went out there.
G: To Cortland?
B: Yes. And it was about that time that you could type.
G: Uh huh. Well, I must have been four and a half then. But I wasn't living there then?
B: Yes. Yes, you were living there. And every time your father'd get away from the typewriter, you'd be there typing. And you had a society or something, a group together, and you were the secretary and president, I guess, and you wrote out minutes for it, and I found that a long time later on. You wrote out who was president and secretary, you wrote it and you weren't more than six years old at that time.
G: Gramp died in 1952, didn't he?
B: Yes.
G: What did he die of?
B: Paget's Disease.
G: I thought I remembered that once he came home from the office and you said that he had tried to lift a desk to move it and he'd strained himself too much and had to come home. Do you remember that?
B: I don't remember that, no.
G: That wasn't part of the disease?
B: But that was part of the disease, because that was a bone disease. The bones grew out. On his head they were beginning to grow out, and his ribs grew out. He just--it was a bone disease.
G: We used to sit out on the porch in the evening. Was that before his disease, or all the time?
B: Well, it was in the summer, we did it, and the man that sold ice cream would come along, and we'd--even when he was sick there, we'd go up on his bed and sit, and have a--what d'you call them?
G: Eskimo Pie [Good Humor?].
B: Yeah! ... party.
G: He used to toss me around and lift me up, I guess, but that was before he was sick?
B: Yeah, I guess so. But the doctor when I found he was so sick, and you were jumping around there, he said, "That's good for him. Let him have his friends in, and his playmates in; Harry loves him so much that it does him good to have them around here." So we didn't make any sickness distinction at all, we just let you have your friends in, have parties, and do things. And when you left to go to Cortland, you invited a lot of kids in for a party, a farewell party for yourself, and I didn't know it. They came, and I--and one little girl, that Sheila Herrens, brought a cake, I think her mother made for you. And I made some sandwiches and you all sat around the kitchen on the floor and had a party. And some of them brought you presents. I think the Herrens children both did.
G: That must have been the summer of 1952?
B: Yeah.
G: So we went out to Cortland just a few months after Gramp died?
B: Yeah, must be. I guess so.
G: Do you remember staying in the house after he was gone?
B: Yes, and I would have been scared to death if you hadn't been there. And I moved the bureau up in front of the door every night.
G: Where was Steven all this time?
B: Well, he wasn't born, I would think.
G: Well, no, he was born in 1949, and we didn't leave until ...
B: Well, he must have been up in Cortland with your mother.
G: So they went out to Cortland just when Steven was born and they bought the house right away?
B: Yeah. Your father went out there and bought it before they moved up there.
G: But then, when it was burnt, they had to move into the Wiltses' apartment while it was being redone?
B: Yes.
G: And I think that's when I came out, while they were still in the Wiltses' apartment.
B: Yes, it was.
G: Did you stay in Cortland then?
B: I didn't go up to Cortland till after your grandfather died.
G: That's what I meant.
B: And then your mother was down at her mother's. She didn't want to go into an institution, and she liked to go to your grandmother's, because she said she could cry all day and nobody'd pay any attention to her.
G: When did she have her shock treatment, do you know?
B: Well, that was just before that, the summer before.
G: So when we moved--when Gramp died and I moved out to Cortland--
B: I took you out. I thought your father ought to have you.
G: Yeah. And then where did you stay right after that?
B: I stayed there for a year. And then your mother decided she felt better and could come back. And so I thought [There may be some words missing here, since the tape was turned over at this point] that I shouldn't stay out there any longer. If I'd stayed there, your mother either might depend on me, or else might resent me. So I had no place to go. And how old was I then? I was about 66 or -seven. And so I called up Alice Lamont's mother. I went down to your Uncle Stan's and stayed a couple of weeks, down at the Cape, and I had--everything I had in my life was in my car. I didn't have another thing, anywhere. And I went down there, and I thought, "Well, I'm absolutely homeless. What'll I do?" And I called up Partha Lamont and said, "How would you like to board me for the winter?" And she said, "We'd like to. Alice is just getting a divorce from her husband, and we need the money." And so I came down there, and I stayed nine years there.
G: And then you moved over to here [Mildred Percival's house].
B: Yup. And you used to love to come down there. She'd let you sleep on the sun porch. And she was so nice--they were so nice to you.
G: Yeah. Did you ever come back out to Cortland to stay for an extended period, or did you just visit?
B: I'd just go out there and stay at the hotel. I always stayed at the hotel when I went out. I'd go out for a weekend, or something.
G: Let's see. What else do I want to ask about that part of the past? I remember when you took me and Linda Finn to see King Kong. That was in third grade, so that was the year that you stayed in Cortland. How about Mrs. Dubois? When did we have her?
B: Well, your father had her all the time that your mother was gone that year. And she was wonderful. She did all the work, cooking and cleaning and everything. She was wonderful. And she stayed right on the year that I was out there.
G: Did Steven have both Mother and Daddy taking care of him for the first couple of years?
B: Yeah, must be, because I think he was about three when I went out there. And he was as devoted to Mrs. Dubois as you were to me, because she--but he had very lonesome spells, and I would fit in then. I remember he'd sit looking out the window and cry about eleven o'clock. And I'd take him out--it was about time to eat--I'd take him out in his carriage, and roll him around, and then we'd go back and eat. But Mrs. Dubois was wonderful to him.
G: I guess when we get past that, I remember--
B: You remember yourself.
G: Yeah, I remember almost as much about your life as you do.
B: Yeah, I guess so!
G: How about the political history of the country? What is the earliest President you remember, for example?
B: I never was interested in politics, and I can't tell you a thing about it. Only just, I remember that your grandfather was a Republican, because they had a tariff? was it a tariff for goods to come in from other countries?
G: Yes.
B: They put a something--was that a tariff?
G: Yes.
B: Well, the Republicans believed in a tariff, and the Democrats didn't believe in it. So when the Democrats would be in office, I know my father would have very hard times, because they would allow the watches and things of that kind to come in with no tariff on them, and they could sell them cheaper than they could sell our own goods, so the factory--we had a watch factory, Ingraham's Watch, in Bristol--that would go down, and the prices would be up, but they could sell foreign, Swiss watches especially, much cheaper, and so there wouldn't be any business in Bristol at that time. So that's how I happen to be a Republican, because I thought that's what--it doesn't seem as though it's "tariff" they call it.
G: Well, "duty".
B: Not "duty" ... it's something.
G: Or "customs".
B: Something they put on.
G: "Tariff" is what they call it.
B: Well, maybe that's it.
G: How about the technological advances? Have you been affected by those?
B: Oh, certainly, very, very greatly.
G: Of course, you can drive around now. It's not too expensive to have that, and television. Do you find that television is very helpful in getting along from day to day?
B: Well, yes, it passes the time, and that's all.
G: Do you find that it's better now, or was it better when you were younger, or do you know?
B: No, I think it really keeps improving all the time. They can't have the same thing every day, and they sometimes ... I think it's better on the whole. Certainly the news is wonderful.
G: But you mostly watch during the daytime.
B: Yes. I hardly ever look at it at night.
G: Just watch game shows? Jeopardy and ...
B: Mostly news lately. That's about it.
G: Let's see, what else was I thinking about? How about convenience products for the home, like detergents?
B: Oh, that's wonderful. It's helped women's housework tremendously, all these improvements.
G: Do you think that people are happier now than when you were young, or less happy...
B: No. I think they're less happy. The more you have, the more discontented you get if you don't have them.
G: What other factors do you think are involved? Do you think that there's any dependence on family relations involved in happiness?
B: I think it's a very bad thing for women to think they're the equal of men. I don't believe in that at all. Because women are different than men, that's all there is to it. They have a motherliness worked right into them, and no matter how hard a man tries to be motherly to a child, he just can't, and he isn't. The woman has it in her naturally. He can do as much for a child, but there's a difference in their feeling of parent. A father feels protective of a child, and wants him happy, but a mother has a more motherly instinct. She has an instinct in her. And I don't--I think it's very bad that women have gone to work and left their children to baby sitters when they're little and need their love and attention. I think it's bad for the family, and I think that's half that makes all the crime.
G: What other differences do you see between the days when you were young and these days?
B: Well, I don't know. I think even the churches are changing. It used to be that churches were really just a place where you went to worship God, and that was the important thing in the church. Now they seem to have so much entertainment and amusement and things of that kind that are going on, that you almost forget that that's a place of worship.
G: How has Bristol changed since then? Of course, there are a lot more houses, a lot more outlying ...
B: Yeah. But I think that these plazas and marketplaces have ruined the centers of towns and cities now. People would much rather go to the Plaza than to go up to the center of Bristol now, and consequently the centers are really disintegrating. It's on account of the outside markets that they're making.
G: Do you think that's bad?
B: Well, I don't know. Automobiles that have brought that about.
G: Mm hm. Of course, it means we're more dependent on automobiles.
B: Because you can't get to those outside places.
G: I don't suppose that you can go everywhere on the bus the way you used to be able to.

[At this point the phone rang, ending the conversation.]